Showdown: Tumblr vs. WordPress
The epic showdown. Two titans of free internet content-management will meet in this arena. Only one can emerge victorious.
Two things should be made clear at the outset: (1) I was looking to make a link blog, not a typical tumblelog with multiple kinds of posts, all formatted differently; and (2) I eventually chose (self-hosted) WordPress. Yes, I just killed the drama. But this is about a comparison, and not (as I implied in the last paragraph) about winners or losers.
There were, three battles in this war. The first is the one that only matters to the proprietor: the back-end. This focuses primarily on how easy it is to create and edit entries for such a blog. Second, and what was the deciding factor for me, was archiving. That is: how easy it is to find what you want among the old stuff. The final issue is rather nebulous, but we’ll call it flexibility. That being whether each CMS can do the splits.
The Back
This is, without question, the place where WordPress loses a lot of points. And where Tumblr shines, especially if you’re looking for more than a link blog.
Tumblr’s backend is stylish, as the image at right demonstrates. I could go all the way to elegant and perhaps beautiful. Essentially you select the kind of post you’re going to be making, and then you’re taken to a specific page that’s tailored for making that kind of post. If you haven’t played around with Tumblr, it might be worth signing up just to see this.
WordPress, on the other hand, is a hulking CMS which can do lots of things. But it’s not terribly elegant at any of them. The way I create a post for my link blog demonstrates well. On the top the title, post text, and tags are entered. Then the link is added down at the bottom in the “custom fields” area. In which I’ve had to create a custom field called “link,” in which I put URL I want this entry to point to.
The use of custom fields — by definition separate from WordPress’s normal working — also makes it slightly hard to style entries properly, and harder still to make the feed act correctly (a problem I still haven’t fixed on my blog). I don’t need to go into detail, but suffice it say that it’s a headache.
Advantage Tumbler
The Archives
This is where WordPress, comparatively, shines. And the reason that I decided to throw my lot in with the ugly backend of WordPress, rather than the snazzy ease of Tumblr.
Tumblrs archive (see random example) look nearly as fresh and innovative as Tumblr’s backend. When I first saw one I said: “Wow. This is cool!”
And even though all those statements are true, Tumblr’s Archives are troublesome. For one, I’m not a fan of horizontal scrolling, which any reasonably old blog would have. And the only way to search such archives is with a browser’s built-in search fuction — which works, but is hardly elegant. And the ability to navigate with tags, of which I’m becoming an ever bigger fan, is completely out as well.
By contrast, WordPress is built for archives. The archives page I’ve thrown together for my nascent link blog gives you some ideas. There are tags there, as well as categories and monthly archives. Sure there’s a lot less flash than Tumblr’s page, but this has something else that Tumblr doesn’t. The ability to search. Built-in. And search plus all the ways you can view a WordPress archive means a lot to me.
Advantage WordPress
Flexibility
As I mentioned at the start, this a rather nebulous category. It encompasses most everything that I haven’t mentioned but feel the need to.
Both Tumblr and WordPress have a large array of themes. For the purposes of tumbling or linkblogging, Tumblr’s better in this. As for the novice, some seemingly-complex things have to be done to any WordPress theme to make it work at all.
Both tumblr and WordPress can exist at their own domains (though the tumblr default is X.tumblr.com, it can be easily changed). Having said that, all Tumblr backend work happens at tumblr.com.
Also, if one is reasonably skilled, it should noted that WordPress can do much more than Tumblr. But many, not even myself, are reasonably skilled.
So for the novice Tumblr is probably a wise choice (note that I’m not wise), you can’t do many of the things that WordPress allows you — seperate pages, for example — but the ease-of-use is hard to beat.
This is hard to call, so I’ll go ahead and do it the easy way:
Novice: Advantage Tumblr
Level 3 Nerd: Advantage WordPress
Conclusions
This contest is hard to call. Each CMS got 1.5 points out of three. As I suggested, I would decide this based on nerdiness. If you’re comfortable with CSS, HTML, PHP, and WordPress, I think that’s the obvious choice. If the acronyms in the last sentence confused and disoriented you, Tumblr’s probably a wiser bet.
Forced to choose an overall winner, I think I’d choose Tumblr.
The only reason I’m not currently using it is that dislike it’s archiving system. And that I like the possibility for future improvement when I finally get smart and motivated enough.
I hope I clinched the choice for you, affirmed what you were alreay thinking. Neither system’s terrible. Neither systems perfect. It’s just important to choose the best one for your needs and abilities.
I find that wordpress is seemingly much more professional than tumblr. That statement “log the last funny chat you had” — just made me think “teenager”.
While wordpress’ back end is somewhat ugly and even vulgar at times, this bothers me none, as I have been using Windows Live Writer to do all my entries into wordpress, which allows me a few necessary options that wordpress web-based does not.
-Fragzem
Nice write up. I think your last sentence summed it up best. They are 2 different apps targeted at 2 different kinds of users.
I feel I must confess my surprise and delight that some of the comments I went to delete as spam — I still haven’t turned on Askimet — were real comments from real people.
I’m glad you guys found something worthwhile in my comparison. And I also feel even more obligated to do a better job making new and interesting content for this site.
Nice comparison. I use both. My “serious” blog is a Wordpress self-hosted deal. My personal and less “serious” blog is a tumblr account. Of course, it’s not really a blog. It’s more like a content stream, which is exactly what I was looking for.
I wanted a link blog that did more than just link to stuff. I also wanted some of the functionality of twitter but without the childish annoyances it entails. So, tumblr fit the bill.
I have the RSS piped into a sidebar widget on my blog for my readers to get a glimpse of peripheral content, since I keep my main blog for “serious” stuff.
Blog = readscott.com
tumblr = hearscott.com
I’ve had more WordPress blogs than I care to admit over the years, and even rolled my own weblog back before the term was coined, but Tumblr enables me to keep it fresh and to go from idea to post much faster than WordPress. It helps me prevent blogfade. I can take a picture w/ my cell phone, email it to my Flickr account and within an hour or so it will automagically appear on my Tumblr page, complete w/ a title and a comment. And I don’t have to mess w/ updates which are a PITA (even with an auto-update plugin). I guess I don’t get all this talk about ‘serious’ vs. not serious blogs. I put pics and video and text in my WordPress blog. I can do the same w/ Tumblr, it’s just easier. Easier doesn’t mean less serious.
I started a Tumblr log to cover my recent trip to Mexico. Even with limited internet connectivity I managed to post 2-3 times a day. I *never* do that on my WordPress blogs. I’m considering dropping WordPress altogether!
i love wordpress but i was just looking into tumblr on the whim. this page had all the answer i needed and wanted to hear! thanks
I recently moved from WordPress to Tumblr, and doubt I’ll look back. I blog a lot from my Sidekick, and Tumblr is much easier to manage from my phone. Also, while I know the basics of HTML, and CSS (I can follow a tutorial for PHP but it’s over my head) I’d rather not mess with it if I don’t have to. Tumblr themes are also way easier for me to modify to suit my neds, because I only have to look at one file instead of 5 or more.
I will agree the archive system sucks in Tumblr, and I hate that it doesn’t follow the CSS Of my theme. I am currently thinking of a solution.
great post, i’ve been trying to compare these two services for a while.
I’ve run both types of blogs, currently I have a tumblr blog. Its simplicity and design can’t be matched. Posting is easy and fun, it creates its own little community with followers, dashboard, and reblogs. However i’ve recently hit the wall with tumblr. Once you get going and really want to expand, tumblr doesn’t allow this. I’m in the process of moving my tumblr to wordpress (a move that is not easy or fun, mainly bc of everything being on tumblrs end and no easy way to export posts). If you’re a casual blogger, tumblr is for you, if you want to customize and expand your blog, wordpress is what you need.
Good post, simple, but effective, and came up first on Wordpress vs Tumblr (good seo there, any hints?)